The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:Since there is no mention of any C14 dating in the articles or letter cited I presume that
I would also like to point out that the carbon dates on the bones should be available to the official team by now. I have previously explained that the beginning of the second century BC is the boundary between the two possible ranges of carbon date. Katerina Peristeri's dating of the sealing is therefore a strong hint that the carbon dates have pointed to the earlier carbon epoch (roughly 350-180BC). This is VERY significant.
Is your speculation entirely, and would suggest its only significance is its total insignificance; speculation based on artefacts or sources is fair enough but on pseudo-Holmesian deduction, mmmh? Good to see you are preparing your defence of a later C14 date, where is the research demonstrating this step change?
The C-14 inference may be deduced as follows. We know that C-14 dating of the bones was commissioned in January, because the Greek Ministry of Culture told us so at the time. Such measurements take no more than months, so I hope we may agree that the results very probably now exist. Hopefully, we may also agree that Katerina Peristeri as head of the archaeological team is very likely to have been told the results. Now she has publicly announced that the tomb was in use only up to the Roman Conquest in 168BC and she has added that the tomb was sealed in the second century BC. Peristeri cannot therefore believe that the C-14 dates are later than the Roman conquest. QED the C-14 results have come out as pre-168BC.

So are you challenging the assumptions here: that the C-14 results exist and that the head of the excavation knows them? That is all that is necessary to conclude that the C-14 results are in the early Hellenistic range. If Peristeri does not know that her new revised sealing date is consistent with the C-14 dates, then she is being very daring in announcing it.

The chart below shows the range of C-14 dates (vertical axis) that you will get from organic material that died at the date given on the horizontal axis. The blue lines are 96% confidence upper and lower bounds (the red lines are for 68% confidence). Hence for material that died in 315BC you can see that C-14 dates between 380BC and 175BC will be measured 96% of the time. Similar C-14 date ranges are measured right the way up to material that died in 210BC (where the C-14 range is also 380BC to 175BC at 96% confidence). However, for material that died in 168BC C-14 dates will be measured that range right the way up to ~50BC and there is scarcely any overlap with the 315BC range at 68% confidence more recently than dates just a few years after the Roman conquest. Peristeri must have C-14 date ranges from the Amphipolis tomb bones that correspond with death dates before ~200BC in order to be confident in announcing that the bones were deposited before the Roman conquest. As you can see, there is a fairly sudden transition in the C-14 date ranges just around the Roman conquest. If you were basing an archaeological theory on C-14 dates, you would tend to use dates that correspond to sudden transitions in the C-14 date ranges. The fact that Peristeri is doing so in this case hints that she not only knows the C-14 dates, but is basing her revised sealing date upon them. It must be some kind of new information received since her team suggested that the sealing happened in the Roman imperial period last November and it must be compelling to have overthrown that view.

Best wishes,

Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

To contrast with that, some very recent modelling estimates for dating within the problematic periods of c.800 bc - c.400bc and c.380 bc - c.180 bc.

Image

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10. ... czhVrJVhBc

Yes, a date at c.300 BC will be a huge smudge of ranges. But away from that, especially at the extremes of the c.380 BC - c. 180 bc range, it should be clear enough whether it is likely to be early or late.

Just for reference, dating of samples from the fill was also reported as having been done late last year. It would seem more likely to me that they would be related to any dating of the sealing walls. However, that too would not be fully convincing in and of itself.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

Well I have no idea where the chart comes from but in C14 0 =1950 and one counts back from them (BP before Present but still 1950) so -1000 on your chart ought to be 950 AD, maybe you could reference its origin?

This is addressed to Taphers,
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

αιώνα (325-300 π.Χ.) με διάρκεια ζωής μέχρι και τους ρωμαϊκούς χρόνους, οπότε και καταστρέφεται εν μέρει ο περίβολος.
(325-300 BC) with a lifespan of up to Roman times, when it was partly destroyed the precinct.
This is a Google gaff, ‘και τους ρωμαϊκούς χρόνους’, does not mean ‘up to Roman times’ but into or through Roman times. The date is tied to the dismantling of the peribolos which was dated numismatically to the third century AD.

Quite how she claims the sealing walls are to be dated from 2nd century BC is unclear since the blocks come from the peribolos they ought to be contemporary to its dismantling. She will be working with much more than the C14 data. If’ Dawn’ is correct and
According to information of "Dawn", the Museum of Amphipolis stored pottery from various parts of the interior of the monument dating between the second half of the 2nd century. BC or early 1st BC century
Then she cannot be right, she does not deny that the pottery was seen by the visitors only that their visit was brief. Obviously if there are 1st century BC shards within the tomb then the sealing cannot be before 1st century BC.

So what we have is two mutually exclusive statements and no way of deciding between them other than our own prejudices since the evidence has still not been released, but hopefully will be soon.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:
αιώνα (325-300 π.Χ.) με διάρκεια ζωής μέχρι και τους ρωμαϊκούς χρόνους, οπότε και καταστρέφεται εν μέρει ο περίβολος.
(325-300 BC) with a lifespan of up to Roman times, when it was partly destroyed the precinct.
This is a Google gaff, ‘και τους ρωμαϊκούς χρόνους’, does not mean ‘up to Roman times’ but into or through Roman times. The date is tied to the dismantling of the peribolos which was dated numismatically to the third century AD.
1. The Bing Translator also independently agrees that she means "with a lifetime up to Roman times"
2. Through Roman times would mean centuries beyond the 2nd century BC when she says the tomb was sealed, so such a translation would make her contradict herself.

The date is not tied in any way to the Roman dismantling of parts of the peribolos. There is no reason whatsoever why the sealing event and the dismantling of the peribolos should not be completely separate events.
agesilaos wrote:Quite how she claims the sealing walls are to be dated from 2nd century BC is unclear since the blocks come from the peribolos they ought to be contemporary to its dismantling. She will be working with much more than the C14 data. If’ Dawn’ is correct and
According to information of "Dawn", the Museum of Amphipolis stored pottery from various parts of the interior of the monument dating between the second half of the 2nd century. BC or early 1st BC century
Then she cannot be right, she does not deny that the pottery was seen by the visitors only that their visit was brief. Obviously if there are 1st century BC shards within the tomb then the sealing cannot be before 1st century BC.

So what we have is two mutually exclusive statements and no way of deciding between them other than our own prejudices since the evidence has still not been released, but hopefully will be soon.
The provenance of these potsherds is obviously unclear and the statement about them is sourced from Kottaridi, not from Peristeri. From the interior of the monument cannot mean from inside the sealing walls firstly because 1st century BC potsherds cannot have been found there if it was sealed in the 2nd century BC and secondly because Katerina Peristeri would not have provided unpublished dating evidence to visitors who were known to be her critics and thirdly because Peristeri appears to have stated last November that they found no coins or potsherds inside the sealing walls. Interior of the monument need mean nothing more than that they were dug up during the widespread excavations into the mound. Indeed it must mean that, since Peristeri has said that the sealing was earlier than the date of some of the potsherds.

It is not valid to take the opinions of Kottaridi & Co and try to use them to contradict the statements of the Chief Archaeologist who is clearly in possession of C-14 dating evidence.

Best wishes,

Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:Well I have no idea where the chart comes from but in C14 0 =1950 and one counts back from them (BP before Present but still 1950) so -1000 on your chart ought to be 950 AD, maybe you could reference its origin?

This is addressed to Taphers,
The chart is from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. They should be at https://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/ but their site seems to be down.

The dates are of course in Universal Time not radiocarbon years before present, i.e. 0 is 1BC, so -314 is 315BC and so on.

Here is the equivalent chart for the 1st millennium AD:
Carbon14c.png
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

The Bing translator? Hardly an authority :D You have a touching faith in Peristeri, or Mrs Pigeons as Bing would have it, she has contradicted herself many times, you even pointed out a total omnishambles based on their enshrining of the 158m measurement as the 'measurement of Deinokrates'. The sad fact is that we have not been presented with the evidence nor many sensible interpretations but there is no getting away from the fact that the peribolos was dismantled by the Romans well into the ADs, that was the evidence presented at the one so-called full exposition.

Surely you do not require Bing to realise that the phrase '...up to Roman times, WHEN it was partly destroyed the peribolos.' links what is meant by tous romaikous chronous with the partial destruction of the peribolos.

If she is saying that the peribolos was partially destroyed in 2nd century BC she is contradicting the November (?) press conference; wehen she was still the head archaeologist or digger with responsibility , to use the bingidiom. If one uses material from the peribolos to effect the sealing the dismantling of the peribolos is necessarily subsequent upon the dismantling, come on Sherlock, its hardly a two pipe problem :P

The potsherds were seen by her rivals in the Amphipolis museum, to the trained eye they are distinctive enough. I think that there have been various claims about what was found inside the tomb including the oft repeated 'coins with the face of Alexander' a good way to imply a link to Alexander but retain deniability of an Alexandrian date.

With apologies to our Greek members, at the moment I would not trust a Greek archaeologist to lie straight in bed on anything from Vergina or Kastas. :evil:
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by agesilaos »

Thanks for the info on the chart but the 'of course' is otiose, if the axes are not labelled you really ought to say what they are, if I had a picture of a finger and a puppy....I did try that site and could not get to it, however Zebedee's article seems to palliate your council of despair, somewhat :lol:

Mrs Pigeons could, perhaps make use of your C14 escape hatch.

On a different thread, I posted the excavation picture from Tomb I or a link to Mcleod's Thesis whence I obtained it. Now, you have good eye-sight and no one would accuse us of being in cahoots, can you see the ankylosis (compare with Bartsiokis' photos), it is obscured both by the colour and the separation but I can see it and you could supply independent witness (or not, after all you are independent!). please post on the lameness thread, I think it might be the body in Tomb III one, you know how things sprawl.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote:To contrast with that, some very recent modelling estimates for dating within the problematic periods of c.800 bc - c.400bc and c.380 bc - c.180 bc.

Image

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10. ... czhVrJVhBc

Yes, a date at c.300 BC will be a huge smudge of ranges. But away from that, especially at the extremes of the c.380 BC - c. 180 bc range, it should be clear enough whether it is likely to be early or late.

Just for reference, dating of samples from the fill was also reported as having been done late last year. It would seem more likely to me that they would be related to any dating of the sealing walls. However, that too would not be fully convincing in and of itself.
The article that you reference merely argues that C-14 concentrations can be measured more accurately now than in the past, so that there are some improvements in C-14 dating accuracy, which is of course true.

But poor measurement accuracy is NOT the reason for the wide spread in dates between 325-175BC. It is a much more fundamental problem. Basically the radiocarbon ratios in the atmosphere decreased slightly in the 3rd century BC. The result was that the ratio of C-14 in things that died around the end of the 3rd century BC was about the same AT THAT TIME as in things that had died at the end of the 4th century BC . Of course the subsequent decay rates have remained the same in both sets of remains ever since, so the radiocarbon activity of things that died in the late 4th and late 3rd century BC is absolutely identical and nobody will be able to distinguish between the two age ranges using the radiocarbon technique absolutely and permanently and for all time.

Best wishes,

Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:The Bing translator? Hardly an authority :D You have a touching faith in Peristeri, or Mrs Pigeons as Bing would have it, she has contradicted herself many times, you even pointed out a total omnishambles based on their enshrining of the 158m measurement as the 'measurement of Deinokrates'. The sad fact is that we have not been presented with the evidence nor many sensible interpretations but there is no getting away from the fact that the peribolos was dismantled by the Romans well into the ADs, that was the evidence presented at the one so-called full exposition.

Surely you do not require Bing to realise that the phrase '...up to Roman times, WHEN it was partly destroyed the peribolos.' links what is meant by tous romaikous chronous with the partial destruction of the peribolos.

If she is saying that the peribolos was partially destroyed in 2nd century BC she is contradicting the November (?) press conference; wehen she was still the head archaeologist or digger with responsibility , to use the bingidiom. If one uses material from the peribolos to effect the sealing the dismantling of the peribolos is necessarily subsequent upon the dismantling, come on Sherlock, its hardly a two pipe problem :P
Clearly, the peribolos was PARTLY destroyed when the sealing was performed, because the sealing walls were built with stone from the peribolos. There also seems to have been a subsequent more extensive destruction of the peribolos in the Roman imperial period when stone was taken to build a bridge/dam on the Strymon just south of Amphipolis. There is no reason for the sealing and initial destruction to be linked with the stone robbing for bridge building centuries later. There is no reason to read any self-contradiction into Peristeri's latest letter.

Best wishes,

Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by system1988 »

Concerning the translation greek- english the right one is that of Agesilaos.Literally is : ' into and through roman times '

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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Taphoi wrote: The article that you reference merely argues that C-14 concentrations can be measured more accurately now than in the past, so that there are some improvements in C-14 dating accuracy, which is of course true.

But poor measurement accuracy is NOT the reason for the wide spread in dates between 325-175BC. It is a much more fundamental problem. Basically the radiocarbon ratios in the atmosphere decreased slightly in the 3rd century BC. The result was that the ratio of C-14 in things that died around the end of the 3rd century BC was about the same AT THAT TIME as in things that had died at the end of the 4th century BC . Of course the subsequent decay rates have remained the same in both sets of remains ever since, so the radiocarbon activity of things that died in the late 4th and late 3rd century BC is absolutely identical and nobody will be able to distinguish between the two age ranges using the radiocarbon technique absolutely and permanently and for all time.

Best wishes,

Andrew
Andrew, those points are directly addressed by the peer reviewed paper co-authored by the former head of Leicester's archaeology department and the current chair of European archaeology at Oxford. With the utmost and greatest of respect to your own qualifications in the field of applying Bayesian statistical models to radiocarbon dating, I think I will take their word that the results which they are getting are demonstrating that, with sufficient robust sampling methodology, your assertions on the issue should be placed in some context of what is achievable currently. Possibly worth saying again, the issue is not whether a c.300 bc date will carry a large health warning as to accuracy - it will. That is true. But the dating towards the edges of the period can be parsed for greater accuracy and to determine whether they sit to one side or the other of that fudge in the middle. So, for example, an Olympias is not likely should the radiocarbon dating place skeletal remains either side. One can no longer say '800 bc to 200 bc, we just don't know', nor '400 bc to 200 bc, we just can't tell'. It is possible in places - as demonstrated in the dating for Broxmouth I used as an image in that post. Whether the Greeks have the funding to do this is another matter again, of course. We shall see.
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

Zebedee wrote:
Taphoi wrote: The article that you reference merely argues that C-14 concentrations can be measured more accurately now than in the past, so that there are some improvements in C-14 dating accuracy, which is of course true.

But poor measurement accuracy is NOT the reason for the wide spread in dates between 325-175BC. It is a much more fundamental problem. Basically the radiocarbon ratios in the atmosphere decreased slightly in the 3rd century BC. The result was that the ratio of C-14 in things that died around the end of the 3rd century BC was about the same AT THAT TIME as in things that had died at the end of the 4th century BC . Of course the subsequent decay rates have remained the same in both sets of remains ever since, so the radiocarbon activity of things that died in the late 4th and late 3rd century BC is absolutely identical and nobody will be able to distinguish between the two age ranges using the radiocarbon technique absolutely and permanently and for all time.

Best wishes,

Andrew
Andrew, those points are directly addressed by the peer reviewed paper co-authored by the former head of Leicester's archaeology department and the current chair of European archaeology at Oxford. With the utmost and greatest of respect to your own qualifications in the field of applying Bayesian statistical models to radiocarbon dating, I think I will take their word that the results which they are getting are demonstrating that, with sufficient robust sampling methodology, your assertions on the issue should be placed in some context of what is achievable currently. Possibly worth saying again, the issue is not whether a c.300 bc date will carry a large health warning as to accuracy - it will. That is true. But the dating towards the edges of the period can be parsed for greater accuracy and to determine whether they sit to one side or the other of that fudge in the middle. So, for example, an Olympias is not likely should the radiocarbon dating place skeletal remains either side. One can no longer say '800 bc to 200 bc, we just don't know', nor '400 bc to 200 bc, we just can't tell'. It is possible in places - as demonstrated in the dating for Broxmouth I used as an image in that post. Whether the Greeks have the funding to do this is another matter again, of course. We shall see.
I am NOT contradicting the paper. I am saying that you are falsely extending its methodology to the Amphipolis tomb context.
It is absolutely impossible to distinguish whether a sample is from the end of the 4th cent BC or the end of the 3rd cent BC from the radiocarbon ratio alone, because the two dates give the same radiocarbon ratio.
However, if you have ancillary dating information, even subtle information, then you can of course do much better.
The subtle ancillary info used by the authors of your paper is the stratigraphy (layering of remains in the soil over time) for their iron age finds.
There is no stratigraphy in the Amphipolis tomb, so this is NOT RELEVANT and there is no basis to narrow the distributions given by the charts from Oxford Uni above.
Best wishes,
Andrew
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Zebedee »

Taphoi wrote: I am NOT contradicting the paper. I am saying that you are falsely extending its methodology to the Amphipolis tomb context.
It is absolutely impossible to distinguish whether a sample is from the end of the 4th cent BC or the end of the 3rd cent BC from the radiocarbon ratio alone, because the two dates give the same radiocarbon ratio.
However, if you have ancillary dating information, even subtle information, then you can of course do much better.
The subtle ancillary info used by the authors of your paper is the stratigraphy (layering of remains in the soil over time) for their iron age finds.
There is no stratigraphy in the Amphipolis tomb, so this is NOT RELEVANT and there is no basis to narrow the distributions given by the charts from Oxford Uni above.
Best wishes,
Andrew
Another image of all c-14 dates looking the same, from cited paper. As you can see, the (simulated) results from 400 bc, 300 bc and 200 bc are absolutely indistinguishable...

Image
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Re: The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

Post by Taphoi »

system1988 wrote:Concerning the translation greek- english the right one is that of Agesilaos.Literally is : ' into and through roman times '

Greetings

Pauline
Thanks for that, but Katerina Peristeri does not seem to have thought that she meant that, since it results in a translation where she contradicts herself by saying that the tomb was in use after it was sealed. However, given the ambiguity, we perhaps need to focus on the definite statement that the tomb was sealed in the 2nd century BC. It remains extremely probable that that is based on the C-14 results from the bones AND from organic matter in the fill as suggested by zebedee.

Best wishes,

Andrew
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